MAST HOUSE,

IN THE DOCK, AT BLACKWALL, FORMERLY PERRY'S.

This place, which is an hamlet at the eastern extremity of Stepney parish, appears to have possessed dock-yards at a very distant period. When Strype wrote his Circuit Walk, they belonged to Sir Henry Johnson, of Treston Hall, in Suffolk, and one of the representatives in parliament for the borough of Aldborough. He died in 1683, and "left various charities, particularly an almshouse for the poor ship carpenters, at Black wall."

In 1789, Mr. Perry enlarged the premises, and made a new dock, called Brunswick dock, which is capable of receiving twenty-eight East Indiamen, and from fifty to sixty vessels of smaller burthen. It contains, with the embankment and adjoining yard, nineteen superficial acres.

A

part of the premises have lately come into the possession of the East India Dock Company, in which the MAST HOUSE is erected. It is one hundred and twenty feet in height; from which construction the greatest advantages have been derived; many lives having been lost in the dangerous operation of raising these massive timbers, by the old method of doing it at the docks, besides the injury done to the ships. The first experiment was made on the Lord Macartney East Indiaman, on the 25th of October, 1791. Her whole suit of masts and bowsprit, was raised and fixed in three hours and forty minutes, an operation which used to occupy two days, by half the number of men usually employed.

During the late war, the cavalry which were sent to the continent, embarked at Mr. Perry's dock. Such were the accommodations for this service, that an embarkation, which usually occupied three days, has been compleated at this place in as many hours.

MAST HOUSE, BLACKWALL DOCK.

Strype mentions an horse belonging to Sir Henry Johnson, which had worked thirty-four years in this yard, and had acquired no common sagacity in the course of his long service; for when the bell rung for the workmen to leave off, or go to dinner, the animal refused to take another step.

Blackwall is supposed, by some etymologists, to derive its name from its mural embankment being covered with black shrubs, similar to those which grow on Blackheath. Others consider it to have been a corruption of Bleak-wall, from its exposed situation.